
Qass 
Book_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE CURSE OF ROME. 



The Curse of Rome 



A FRANK CONFESSION OF A CATHOLIC 

PRIEST, AND A COMPLETE EXPOSE 

OF THE IMMORAL TYRANNY 

OF THE CHURCH OF 

ROME. 



ik 



BY 

VERY REV. CANON JOSEPH F. MACGRAIL 

Former Chaplain United States Nary 






UB3Ai?YofQONGRESS 
Two OoDles Received 

MAP 4 1.90/ 

n Copyright Entry 

ffASS A xxc.,i4 

COPY 3. I 



Copyright, 1907, 
By Joseph F. MacGrail. 



PRINTED BY THENYVALL PRESS 

TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO 

WEST FORTY-FIRST STREET 

NEW YORK CI TY 



CONTENTS. 



The Confession, ...... 9 

The Dreaded "Pereat/' .... 13 

I Became a Priest, . . . . 20 

'fying Conscience, .... 32 

Temptations of Paris, .... 42 

" Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," ... 58 

Life in the Navy ; Courtmartialed, . , 69 

Rome Renounced ; Paying the Penalty, . 80 




f J^txwas aaJM|m ?»«i^i 



MISBRATIONE DIVINA ET SANCT-® SEDIS APOSTOLIC^ GRATIA. 

EPISCOPUS CAMPIFONTIS. 



Omnibus has Praesentes Inspecturls Fldem Faclmus et Testanur 
Josephtuii McGrall esse prasbytenua hujus Dloeceseos et testaour 
ilium esse sacerdotem nulla eecleslastloa censura neque alio 
eanonieo impedimento aut pA^na quod sciamus irretitum quomlnus 
Ifissae saorificium celebrare possit* 

In quonun fidem» has praesentes litteras manu Nostra 
subscriptas slgilloque Nostro et Secretarfl subscriptions 
muniCas fieri Jussimus, 

Datum Caxsplfonte ex Aedibus Nostris Episcopalibus die 12a 
mens is Pebruarli A« D« 1905 • 



De Mandato Rev— D^ D^ Episcopi.^ 

[SEAL] Q^ ^^^/do-T 



J' 



Secretarius, 



( Translation ) 

To all who may read this letter, we give faith and bear witness that Joseph MacGrail is a 
clergyman of this diocese, and we testify he is a priest whom we know to be under neither eccle- 
siastical censure, nor any canonicaJ impediment or punishment, which can prevent him from cele- 
brating the sacrifice of the Mass. 

In testimony of which we have ordered this letter, subscribed by our hand, to be fortified 
with our seal and the signature of the Secretary. 

Given at our Episcopal Mansion in Springfield, on the 1 2th day of the month of February 
in the year of the Lord, 1905. 

By order of his Most Reverend Lordship the Bishop. 

J AS. F. Ahern, Secretary. 



* Whoever actSy whoever utters honest thought, 
runs the risk of doing harm^ but not to act and not 
to uttei honest thought^ is not to he a man,*' — 
Bishop Spalding, in **Thoughts and Theories of Life 
and Education.'* 



The Curse of Rome. 



THE CONFESSION. 



However little the world may care to hear the 
confessions of another Augustine, not yet a Saint, 
however little profit may come to humanity from 
the life story of a young fallen priest, determined 
to rise again an honest man, however much harm 
may be traced to writings which attack the oldest 
form of Christianity, it is the author's firm con- 
viction that Duty points the way, and only good 
can ultimately flow from these pages, else they 
would remain a hidden history. 

This book is a sort of "Apologia pro Vita 
Sua," being an explanation of the inward move- 
ments of the soul, and a narration of the more im- 
portant occurrences that influenced the mind, or 
followed certain influences on the mind, of a 

9 



young man during his preparation for the Roman 
Catholic priesthood, and six subsequent years of 
active ministrations, three and one-half of which 
were spent in the United States Navy, as Chap- 
lain. 

The acts which reflect disgraceful weakness, 
requiring apology and reparation, are reluctantly 
made public, though the demands of circumstan- 
ces appear to warrant the scandal that may arise. 
They sting the writer to his heart's innermost 
fibre. Still, he does not seek to palliate his deeds, 
nor to vindicate a once fair name. Not what we 
have been, but what we are to-day is the truest 
test of manhood. Let us rejoice that for a time 
our character w^as unblemished, let us grieve that 
shameful sins have ever stolen from its lustre, 
but let us never stand dismayed or disheartened, 
sinking into newer and deeper mires. 'T'll try 
again, I'll die or conquer" is a motto that brings 
to no crest dishonor or defeat. 

Were I encumbered with vast wealth, it would 
seem no less my duty to publish every line within 
these covers, and, indeed, had I been a man of 



fortuned thousands, long ago would this book 
have seen the light. Still, to forestall the awaited 
criticism, ''He wrote all that to make money,'* 
I plead guilty to hoping for and anticipating some 
pecuniary return, and I have not as yet prayed 
that it may be small. Maybe my ecclesiastical 
training schooled me to get a price even for the 
most honest and most holy thoughts, words and 
acts. Mass and the Sacraments, I know, have 
always reaped, and still reap, a rich golden har- 
vest for the "laborers in the vineyard,'' to whom 
the most familiar, and among themselves most 
quoted, text of Scripture is, "The laborer is 
worthy of his hire." Surely, the Church should 
not consider honest thought and money incom- 
patible. 

I now humbly and publicly apologize and ask 
pardon for any disgrace that may have been 
brought upon and any humiliation or mortifica- 
tion that may have been felt by the officers, espe- 
cially my confreres, the chaplains, and men of the 
United States Navy, on account of the lamenta- 
ble termination of my career as an officer. I hold 



"Our Fighters of the Deep" in the highest re- 
gard. 

Whatever neglect of a chaplain's duty may be 
charged against me came from a heart with no 
faith as a priest, bound by a terrible vow to pro- 
fess, teach and defend a religion which had ceased 
to be the only Way, the only Light, and the only 
Truth, yet in which I was held enthralled by a 
body of men, headed by the Pope, holding over 
me menacingly, lest I in honesty should with- 
draw, the dreaded and frightful "Pereat" (Let 
him perish) : "Before all men let him be forever 
an outcast, and before God let him be eternally 
damned." 

May the critic bear in mind that "Even in the 
best writers there is much that is inferior in 
thought and style, as in the fairest landscape there 
is much that is commonplace."'*' 

If anyone think it were better I had held my 
peace, let him remember, "The impulse to utter 
what is deepest in us is irresistible."* 



'Bishop Spalding. 

12 



THE DREADED " PEREAT. 



ff 



A hot sun was beating on Manila Bay. Rusty 
wrecks of the defeated Spanish fleet were an- 
chored in Cavite Harbor. The heat and the 
gloomy ruins of war intensified the strain on a 
prisoner's mind. I was gazing through a large 
air-port on the starboard side of the Flagship 
"Rainbow." A terrible conflict impended, with 
the soul of a man as the field of action. 

"Thou art a priest forever according to the 
order of Melchisedech." Shall it be the priest- 
hood and perdition, or honest renunciation? 
Every cell of my brain is on fire. The contest 
is strangely furious. Theology and experience, 

13 



faith and reason are duelling even unto death. 
Can the fight be real, or is it only the phantom of 
a deluded mind? 

I am under arrest charged with grave misdeeds, 
about to face a court-martial. Why? Swift the 
answer of conscience, 'Thou hast been an un- 
scrupulous religious hypocrite/' I knew I was 
guilty, and I fain would have proclaimed the 
truth, but that same secret power which for 
months and months had overawed me, in the vain 
hope of protecting the innocent kin who would 
be woestricken and disgraced by an honest avowal 
of my heart's convictions, still whispered to my 
weakened will, — ''Deny the accusations, despise 
your conscience and live on, a hypocrite, — the 
Church says you must!'' 

How often that voice within had called and 
called for me to stop ! Wrathful at my deafness, 
the Mighty Power above had seized me, and at 
last I saw in the heavens, the great device of all 
creeds and all nations, God's greatest, only rule 
of life, ''Be Honest!" 

I fell upon my knees and breathed this prayer, 
14 



"Almighty God, I do not ask Thee to give me 
back my youth, nor yet to make me proof against 
the miseries of Hfe; give me but the power to be 
honest, now and till I die. Though exiled, re- 
viled and detested, let no lie be ever again blotted 
on my soul !'' 

I became momentarily a regenerated man, and 
thereupon decided positively to renounce a false 
priesthood, that had ensnared me, and trans- 
formed a pure, true, God-given mind, into a weak, 
dishonest, polluted. Church-serving conscience. 

In the archives of the Navy Department at 
Washington lie twelve hundred pages of type- 
written record, the longest story of any illregu- 
lated life that a United States Navy Court-martial 
ever set out to punish. Only because a Presiden- 
tial election was impending, and the culprit was a 
Roman Catholic priest, did the world miss the 
details of a scandal that makes "Dr. Jekyll and 
Mr. Hyde'' read like a simple nursery melody. 

The author once took on publicly the armor 
of the priesthood, professing his belief in an 

15 



ancient faith, and his wilHngness ever to defend 
it. At that time, this seemed his duty. At length 
it seems as imperative a duty to renounce, with 
Hke pubHcity, that same priesthood, for "Truth 
can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by 
speech.'' In so doing, special emphasis must be 
laid on the heartless tyranny and immoral slavery 
to which the Roman Catholic Church subjects her 
priests, by refusing absolutely to release them hon- 
orably from their vowed obligations, either when 
they feel — or believe or know (experience 
teaches) — that they cannot fully abide by their 
vow of chastity, or when the inward and irre- 
pressible convictions of their conscience have so 
altered their religious views that they cannot hon- 
estly, without reserv^e, and unequivocally teach 
and encourage the world to follow, as the one 
way to heaven, all the discipline and dogmatic 
doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. At 
him who dares refuse to be a hypocrite Rome 
hurls the poisoned "Pereat" (Let him perish), 
and thinks it a triumph to have him wander dis- 
honored and disowned even by his nearest kin. 

i6 



I raise my voice to-day in eternal protest 
against such an ungodly and damnable outrage 
on truth, purity and honesty, and wamingly I 
say to every pious young man, contemplating 
ordination, "Think long and well, and then step 
back, before the mitred one has uttered the magic, 
yet fatal words, ^Thou art a priest forever ac- 
cording to the order of Melchisedech.' " 

Mistake not the end of my scribbled thoughts. 
I cast no blame on the Church for my sins. I 
committed them with a free will. I repent of 
them now. Any punishments that have been vis- 
ited upon me were not undeserved. 

Towards the great mass of American and 
French priests (during three years of study in 
France I came in close contact with the clergy 
of that country) I entertain the kindest feelings. 
As a class they are among the most upright, 
wholesouled, capable, and self-sacrificing men in 
a community. I am positive, nevertheless, that 
sixty per cent of them, in the United States, would 
resign from the priesthood to-morrow if they 
could do so without dishonor, for not more than 

17 



forty per cent are totally blind and believe their 
plight is divinely decreed. The false and silly 
notion of avoiding the scandal of withdrawal, 
the erroneous idea that, "The religious (Roman 
Catholic) view of life must forever remain the * 
true view, since no other explains our longings 
and aspirations, or justifies hope and enthusiasm," 
and, especially, the pain of separation and es- 
trangement from home and friends, hold in servi- 
tude the repining majority. 

If there is one spark of animosity in my heart 
against priests, it is first because of the unjustly 
imposed obligation to profess and to uphold 
blindly and dishonestly a religion in which one 
no longer has true faith, and secondly because 
of the law of celibacy, legitimate in itself for 
those who can observe it, but abominable for 
those who cannot abide by it, yet are mercilessly 
held to it when frankly and manfully asking to 
be released. I maintain that each individual 
priest, who retains his Roman collar and sacred 
garb, is responsible for these laws and all laws 
and customs of his organization, together with 

i8 



their necessary consequences, mindful of the re- 
cent words (applicable to the Church) of His 
Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, speaking of corrup- 
tion and other evils in our modern system of fi- 
nance, "A corporation (such is the hierarchy of 
the Church from priest to Pope) should be re- 
garded as the sum of the entire number of indi- 
viduals composing it, and each member of that 
corporation should be held by the public to a full 
accountability for each and every act of the en- 
tire corporation, whether that act be great or 
small, important or unimportant/' 



X9 



HOW I BECAME A PRIEST. 



Every man can look back to some event that 
has been a turning point in his life. When 
I crossed the threshold of the Grand Seminaire 
de St. Sulpice, in Paris, on October 12th, 1896, 
to begin a cheerless existence in a damp, cold, 
sunless room, to be taught that mortification and 
sanctification are twins, my heart was willing 
and docile. Christ had suffered, why not I ? No 
sacrifice seemed too great for the cause of my 
holy religion. How fortunate, I thought, to be 
in France! What a blessing to be privileged to 
live among those who had for centuries reaped 
the rich harvest of divine favors, and who, being 
close to the earthly fountain of grace, Rome, 
would, by the splendor of their piety and faith, 
reveal to me the grandeur and power of my re- 
ligion. Oh! sad, sad delusion! 



The customs and the exalted state of the 
Church in the Catholic countries of Europe had 
been represented to me, while in America, as the 
fullness and greatness of God's kingdom on earth. 
Behold, in France, the vaunted "Eldest daughter 
of the Church," I was presented to a nation in 
utter religious decadence (that is, according to 
Roman Catholic standards), so hopeless that my 
French professors, in order to nourish the faith 
of the young, discouraged, native seminarians, 
related wondrous tales of the remarkable progress 
of the Church in the United States and Canada. 
Where religion should have been enthroned it 
was enslaved. Incomprehensible contradiction! 
Instead of seeing priests respectfully greeted in 
the streets of Paris, there was only a jeering 
"Caw, Caw," or a loudly shouted "Fourneau," 
that emphasized the people's mocking reverence. 
The very domestics of the seminary, scarcely less 
often than the sneering cabmen on the street 
corners, hissed "Imbeciles" at us. At home such 
insulting manners towards a priest, or any man 
of stamina, would have meant a thrashing then 

ai 



and there. Often we Americans were sorely 
tempted to give a public lesson in muscular Chris- 
tianity, but it would have meant expulsion, and, 
besides, we were told it made us Christlike to 
submit humbly to jeers, jibes and scoffs. 

Instead of finding myself in the midst of a 
deeply Catholic people. God-fearing and virtuous, 
my tent was pitched among atheists, bitter in 
their hatred and persistent in their ridicule of 
that religion which from infancy I had learned to 
revere as divine truth. Instead of feasting in 
rich orchards where the fruits of faith and sanc- 
tity should have been cultivated to perfection, I 
had only the thoughts of the Church at home, 
and my training of youth, to nourish my virtue. 
Surely, in France, the holy Roman Catholic Re- 
ligion has been tried and found wanting. 

Put the blame where you will, France is not, 
to-day, a Roman Catholic country. Far from it! 
Not one-fourth of her population either believe in 
or practice the Roman Catholic Religion, and to 
me, after three years of intimate association with 
Frenchmen, in study and in travel throughout 

22 



their land, it is highly amusing to read in the 
rabid clerical papers that the Jews and Free- 
Masons are ruling the country. It would be bet- 
ter for France if they were, but the truth is, the 
great mass of the common people, the purest blood 
of Gaul, are anti-clerical and irreligious. To be 
sure, the Jews and Free-Masons hate the ecclesi- 
astical authorities, because you. Priests and Bis- 
hops, hate them and encourage in diverse ways 
animosity towards them. 

It was only lack of power that prevented "Une 
Saint Barthelemy des Juifs" (A St. Bartholo- 
mew of the Jews) in 1899, during the height of 
the Dreyfus affair. 

With Scripture as our standard, telling us to 
judge the tree by its fruits, what must be the 
verdict of an honest mind contemplating the 
Church in France? The tree should be chopped 
down. Little by little the vigor of my faith was 
lost in the Gallic ruins. 

Let me turn to my diary of 1896, I find the 
questions, *'How came I a Roman Catholic? 
Answer. I was born one. Why am I now a 

23 



Catholic ? Answer. I freely believe that Roman 
Catholicism is the one and only true faith." At 
that time I really accepted firmly with heart and 
soul the tenets which, I have since learned, are 
without sound foundation. 

Undoubtedly had I never entered the priest- 
hood, I would have continued through life a prac- 
tical, and perhaps even a devout, Roman Catholic, 
because the secret inner workings and the real 
truth about the Church would have remained in- 
accessible. 

"How did you ever happen to become a priest?" 
I often have been asked. 

At about the age of fifteen, I began to 
have a feeling that I would like to be one. It 
was just an impulse, an inward movement. May- 
be I admired the sanctity of my venerable pastor, 
Father John Power, who for years had led a holy 
life that edified me, and excited me to imitation. 
Maybe I thought the priesthood a way to help 
my fellow-men to be happy. Perhaps I thought 
the austere life of a true priest would be the sur- 
est way to expiate my childhood transgressions. 

24 



^ 



I did not really reflect much about the matter. 
I recall well that I perceived a marked inclina- 
tion to become a priest, but just why I wanted to 
be one, I never at that time thought out in definite, 
numbered reasons. However, during my four 
years in the public High School of Worcester, 
I felt myself more and more strongly bent toward 
the service of the Church. 

I was never an altar boy, never intimately as- 
sociated with priests, nor was I ever urged by a 
single soul to become a priest. My father died 
when I was but twelve years of age, leaving me 
the oldest of five boys. Our devoted mother, 
while strict and careful about Church duties, and 
the observance of Sunday, had no extraordinary 
taste for the filagree part of religion. Hers was 
a solid piety, but not blind or demonstrative or 
emotional. She did not long to have a son a 
priest, though in most Catholic families that is 
the fondest craving of a parent. On the contrary, 
she mildly, but persistently, opposed my boyish 
tendency. She once even, just before my ordina- 
tion, confided to her sister, when questioned re- 

25 



garding her opposition, that the reason for her at- 
titude was fear of my possibly not being forever 
a good priest. (Time has proven her a wise, 
foresighted mother.) I was left perfectly free, 
nevertheless, to persevere in my ambitions. 

I was in the habit of going to confession and 
Communion every few months, often monthly, but 
I never spoke to the priest of my inclinations, 
nor did any confessor ever mention to me the 
advisability of entering the priesthood. 

When asked by a relative or friend, "What 
are you going to be when you are a man?" I 
would blush and reply, "I don't know." I felt 
that to be a truthful answer, for I dared not pre- 
sume to say, "A priest." I had been taught the 
priesthood was a divine vocation, and I did not 
feel competent to judge that I had a call from 
the Almighty to be His personal representative. 

I was shy. It embarrassed me to speak to 
young ladies; I thought I was homely, and that 
I never could find a girl who would love me 
enough to marry me. Perhaps that moved me 
some in the direction of the priesthood. I say, 

26 



"perhaps," because I really think it had no in- 
fluence whatever. 

I well remember how Fr. Marie, at Aix-en- 
Provence, once told a group of us seminarians 
about a man who came with his son to have him 
received as a student in Theology. The poor boy 
had not brains enough for a rabbit, and after 
repeatedly failing in examinations, he was re- 
jected. The father was indignant, and going to 
the Superior demanded, "Aren't you going to take 
my boy and make a priest out of him?" "We 
cannot/' was the gentle reply, "he does not meet 
the requirements." Dejectedly, the sad father 
asked, "Well, what am I to do with him? He 
isn't fit for anything else." Maybe I felt, as a 
youth, I was not fit for anything else but the 
priesthood. 

I tried to love, honor and obey my Church, 
often falling into sin, however, and as often try- 
ing to be a good boy again. Time went on. I 
graduated from the High School in 1892, and 
from that year till the year of College graduation, 
I had constantly before my mind the thought, 

27 



"Be careful, be studious, be virtuous, — some day 
you will be a holy priest of the Most Mighty/' 
No wavering in my faith, — no doubts, no hesi- 
tation. 

While some of my relatives showed a generous 
and heartfelt interest in me, and gave me every 
encouragement to persevere in my desires, never 
was I unduly influenced. 

No man ever acted more freely or unselfishly 
than I, when presenting myself in Montreal, at 
the Sulpician House of Philosophy, to don the 
soutane and surplice of an ecclesiastic, and to be- 
gin in earnest what I then thought would be my 
life's work, the saving of souls as a Roman 
Catholic priest. 

To-day I reject the priesthood, and though 
I may err in so doing, I assert with Tupper, 
"Better is the wrong with sincerity, rather than 
the right with falsehood.'' 

My first year in the seminary was not remark- 
able in any way. To be sure, certain weaknesses 
of clergymen, that I had never even dreamt were 
compatible with priestly sanctity, came to my 

28 



notice. The most terrible shock of that year was 
to hear about a Sulpician Father who ran away 
with a woman. Only after careful investigation 
could I accept the story as true, for such "sad 
sacrileges" (the Church always conceals them) 
had never before reached my knowledge. 

To cultivate pious hearts, rather than keen 
minds, is conspicuously the prime object of those 
who train Catholic youth for the priestly mission. 
The long hours of daily prayer and meditation 
always seemed to me very harmful, as the result 
is a sluggish brain and blinded mind. Uncer- 
tainties and mere possibilities are taught as dog- 
matically absolute, but the aspiring student, when 
doubting, always says "My professors know 
best." I consequently believed and obeyed them 
in everything. (Each student in a Catholic Sem- 
inary is assigned to or selects one of the profes- 
sors, a priest, as his Director. To this Spiritual 
Director the aspirant for Holy Orders reveals his 
innermost thoughts, either in weekly confessions, 
or in private, secret, heart to heart talks, called 

"Direction." On this Director devolves the duty 

29 



of deciding for a student whether or not he has 
the vocation to become a priest.) 

Lying, stealing and swearing are not the usual 
sins of a seminarian — no one would expect them 
to be. Indeed, a seminarian rarely sins. He 
does, howe^r, commit little infractions of the 
rigid rules tMt govern7#is every action, gets 
angry occasionally, ^nd of ^tourse has his troubles 
with impure thoughts and desires. I might say 
right here ths^t a seminarian is troubled relatively 
little with lustful passion, as he is kept physically 
and mentally tired by prayer and study, and is 
isolated from women. Still, he is a man physic- 
ally perfect (no eunuch can become a priest), and 
every healthy, normal human being, man or 
woman, over eight years of age, from Holy Pope 
to orphan schoolboy, from stately Queen to bare- 
footed peasant Istssie, has impure thoughts and 
desires. 

As students for the priesthood, we knew that 
it was necessary, at any cost, to reduce our flesh 
to subjection. Various methods were adopted. 
When my nerves of passion twitched in that mys- 

30 



terious way which forebode danger, I forthwith 
sought a paper of needles and a little dish of salt 
which I kept in readiness for such emergencies. 
Whispering the prayer, ^^O Virgin Mary, Mother 
of Purity, intercede for me !" I scratched with 
three or four sharp needles deep into my bared 
breast, over my heart, a cross, and into the bleed- 
ing wound I put salt. The fires of concupiscence 
died out invariably, and my mind was forthwith / 

at peace. 



31 



STULTIFYING CONSCIENCE, 



Paris is a damp, dreary, cloudy city in Decem- 
ber. The chill of the cheerless barracks called 
Grand Seminaire de St. Sulpice will never be for- 
gotten. I had been warned of the discomforts 
of seminary life in Europe, yet how little I under- 
stood what it meant, till the trial came, to have 
hands half numb and covered with chilblains, 
day after day unable to take notes in class, and 
to live within four wet walls, trying to sleep at 
night, shivering between damp sheets, and by day 
vainly trying to light a fire in a broken stove. I 
maintain that physical endurance tests are ill- 
advised while the mind is battling with obscure 
theology. 

On the 17th of December, 1896, America's 
Yellow Day of 1881 was duplicated in the 
French Capital, necessitating, till noon, a lamp 
to study with in my dingy, cold cell, which I left 

33 



with joy for the weekly promenade to Issy, pity- 
ing, as I departed, the students who stayed be- 
hind to prepare for the Christmas ordinations. 
After more than two months of misery and re- 
ligious doubt I began to wish for the end of the 
world or death. 

As we dragged our cassocks along the muddy 
streets, we met three chimney sweeps, black and 
dirty, hands, face and everything thick with soot. 
One carried a long coil of stout rope used in 
lowering the pigmy of the trio into the chimneys, 
the second carried on his back a sack filled with 
various sized brushes and certain necessary uten- 
sils for the trade, while behind these two trudged 
the tiniest midget that ever descended into a chim- 
ney, a waif of perhaps twelve years, who ap- 
peared to be about four. He was carrying with 
difficulty the big brush on top of which he was 
wont to be placed as weight, when it was lowered 
down a chimney. All three of that odd group 
were wretched appearing, but this little chap par- 
ticularly was the most forsaken-looking human, 
being I have ever seen. His pinched face looked! 

33 



like a piece of coal, and it had about as much 
expression. He was dragging himself along as 
if he hadn't a friend in the universe. Maybe he 
had a bright mind. However, only on the last 
guess would one dare say so. Everything in the 
world looked black to him. He breathed dirt, — 
he ate it. If he ever thought of whence he came 
and whither he was going, it must have been, easy 
for him to comprehend, "Dust thou art, and unto 
dust thou shalt return.'' I should think he would 
have felt happy to dream that some day he would 
be dust again, just ordinary dust, with no 
*'poussiere de charbon" as surplus. I wondered 
if he ever to himself had said, "Why am I a poor, 
puny chimney sweep?" 

I little thought as I watched that queer, tiny, 
begrimed youngster, that within a few years I 
would wish I had been born in his place, or rather 
that I would willingly take his place in preference 
to being forced to stand before the world to play 
a part, to teach what in my heart I could not be- 
lieve, in a word, to be a religious hypocrite. A 
thousand times better to be a frail, soot-covered 

34 



human-weight, than to Hve in exalted dishonesty! 

One Sunday, a month later, I was on Mont- 
martre when Cardinal Richard and six Bishops, 
with lay representatives from every Department 
of France, assembled to renew the National vow 
of dedication to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I 
was looking at golden threaded copes and silken, 
purple cassocks, but I was thinking of a black, 
sooty blouse on a sickly Parisian chimney-sweep. 

I once believed nearly everybody was good, 
that those who were not, never tried to be good, 
just out of guilty indifference, that the poor were 
poor because they simply were too lazy to work 
hard, and that if everyone became a Roman Cath- 
olic this world would be exactly as God meant 
it, relatively perfect. The sights, the sins, the 
sufferings, revealed in Paris, completely trans- 
formed me in one year. 

The Summer of 1897 found me trying to for- 
get theology, in order to banish the doubts that 
had arisen during my first ten months in ungodly 
Paris, where the religious atmosphere is nowise 
conducive to even mild faith. Saying to myself, 

35 



^''Forget everything, you are young, and hard 
study has fatigued your brain,— three months' 
rest will clear your mind,'' I started in to see the 
sights of the charming Capital. One day found 
me sauntering leisurely along Les Grands Boule- 
vards, looking in shop windows or admiring the 
stylishly dressed, '^chic" men and women who 
were seated in the Cafes, the next slowly passing 
from cabinet to cabinet in the celebrated Musec 
de Cluny, curiously feeling every antique, in spite 
of the notices, "Defense de toucher." A day of 
complete rest would be followed by a drive to 
Longchamps, a trip to Versailles, or a stroll in 
Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. With a "Baedeker" 
under my arm, I sought out everything that was 
worth seeing. Les Invalides, the Government 
Mint, Pere-Lachaise crematory, Colonne de 
Juillet, Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre's vari- 
ous "Salles," each had its peculiar power of chas- 
ing away all thoughts of theology. 

Towards the end of July, I started to get com- 
plete rest at Lion-sur-Mer, a Summer resort on 
the coast of Normandy. Six pleasant weeks of 

36 



eating, sleeping, bathing, billiard playing and 
bicycling restored to a great extent my peace of 
mind on religious questions. 

The only real painful shock of the Summ.er, 
to my religious sensibilities, was caused by a visit 
to La Delivrande, a town too small and too un- 
important to be recognized in the gazetteer of 
Webster's dictionary. It is situated in Normandy, 
between Caen and Bayeux, about three kilometers 
from the seacoast. A little brochure, that I pro- 
cured in the village, says the place "owes its 
origin, prosperity and glory to a celebrated sanc- 
tuary dedicated to the Queen of Heaven." I saw 
there what savored so much of heathenish idolatry 
that I no longer wonder Catholics are accused of 
making graven images to adore. (So far, the 
United States has escaped the baneful effects of 
pilgrimages and special shrines, but ere long we 
shall have our Notre Dame de New York, Notre 
Dame de Chicago, and Notre Dame de Butte, 
Montana, with all the accompanying faith-de- 
stroying and money-making features.) 

My return to Paris in September was merely 

?7 



to pack up my belongings and start south for 
Aix-en-Provence, to continue my studies there. 
My bishop's permission had of course been ob- 
tained. My health had seemingly been impaired, 
and I found that the damp climate of Winter in 
Paris made serious study an impossibility, espe- 
cially at a seminary which was conducted, like 
most similar French and Italian institutions, on 
the principle, ''La sante, ce n'est rien'' (Health 
is nothing) . 

Aix-en-Provence is one of the most ancient 
cities of France, and was once renowned for its 
institutions of learning. The city has long since 
ceased to be a health resort, though the climate 
is about as mild as that of not distant Nice. The 
famed Thermae Sextii of the Romans, which were 
magnificent mineral baths in 123 B. C, still exist, 
and many a plunge therein refreshened my 
theology-clogged brain, during my two years in 
the Grand Seminary of Aix. 

I had resolved to blind myself for two years to 
all religious difficulties. Nine months of theo- 
logical study and three months of observation in 

38 



France had taught me that I could never be con- 
vinced by reasoning that the Roman Catholic 
Church is the one true church, to which God in- 
tended all men should belong. I determined to 
be a docile student, and to believe everything the 
Church taught. Justin McCarthy tells us, "Mr. 
Disraeli had always the faculty of persuading 
himself to believe or disbelieve anything accord- 
ing as he liked.'' I did not adopt that kind of 
false method of pretended belief or disbelief, but, 
rather, I accepted my Church's creeds on the 
grounds that, if I did not accept and force myself 
to believe what she taught, I would be compelled 
to set sail without compass, rudder or lead-line, 
on the vast, deep, black sea of religious uncer- 
tainty. I knew very many priests who seemed 
to believe everything the Church taught (mark 
well, I say seemed) ; I regarded them as wise, 
holy men. 

The same order of exercises prevailed at Aix 
as at St. Sulpice in Paris. To bed regularly, up 
regularly, same long hours of listless praying, 
same hours of class. 

39 



It rained the first five days of October, so that 
when our opening retreat was over, our first 
weekly promenade revealed in magnificent verdure 
this Palestine-like part of France, where olive 
trees and fig trees, the mulberry and the almond, 
abound on beautifully terraced hills. 

The nine months of class passed quickly. I 
learned things about pol}1:heism, what the Jews' 
conception of God was, a little regarding Jansen- 
ism and other heresies, a great deal about Sacra- 
ments, went over a few centuries of Church His- 
tory, in fine, touched on a variety of theological 
subjects that a priest needs to know something 
about for practical use. I employ purposely the 
words, ''touched on" for, as Bishop Spalding 
says, in somewhat different language, our sem- 
inaries turn out merely good Sunday School 
teachers, not thorough and scholarly theologians. 
We are ordained priests with only a smattering 
of Scripture, and with only vague ideas of the 
great and important problems of theology, just 
enough to fool the multitudes who know nothing 
but their prayers and a few pages of catechism. 

40 



The weekly holiday always seemed to come 
barely in time to drive away dragging doubts. 
It was, indeed, a veritable Paradise to get out 
into the fresh air away from musty doctrine, and 
to be in touch with God's beautiful nature, for all 
Winter long we saw pinks, roses, pansies, Easter- 
daisies, and violets, blooming in the open, and as 
early as January 20th, almond trees were in blos- 
som. 

During my retreat for Minor Orders, I read the 
life of St. Frangois de Sales. "He taught that 
ordinarily in the temptations against faith we 
must flee in order to conquer, rather than to fight 
and to reason." By following this advice I man- 
aged to retain enough faith to feel justified in 
successively accepting my "calls" to the Sub- 
diaconate, Diaconate and Priesthood the follow- 
ing year. 



41 



THE TEMPTATIONS OF 
PARIS. 



The Summer of 1898 I spent in travel, making 
a complete circuit of France. My object was to 
improve myself in the knowledge of the French 
language, and to learn all I could about the ways 
of the world, before I decided to take the final 
step, the solemn receiving of Holy Orders. 

Marseilles, Tarascon, Montpelier, Toulouse, 
Carcasonne, Lourdes (I remained there for sev- 
eral weeks, including the time of the National 
Pilgrimage, when I saw what purported to be 
miracles ; of all this more will be said at another 
time), Pau, Biarritz, St. Sebastian, Bordeaux, 
Poitiers, Tours, Blois and Orleans in turn shared 
my time. Repose, reflection, amusement and 

^42 



study were the routine of each day, till at length 
I again found myself in Paris. I have never tired 
of the beautiful and pleasure-sated French Cap- 
ital. 

I was seated in the Madeleine at Vespers the 
first Sunday of this visit, when someone touched 
me on the shoulder, and said in a whisper, "Hello, 
Joe!'' I turned, and there stood an old college- 
mate, whom I had not seen for three years. After 
Vespers we had a long talk. He had been in 
Europe several months, tutoring a young man, 
and was to sail in about a week for America. 

We decided to see Paris, in the meantime, both 
inside and outside, but particularly inside. He 
was thinking of taking up studies for the priest- 
hood, while I wanted to make sure that it would 
be wise for me to continue to the end. My su- 
preme difficulty, I had concluded, was going to be 
celibacy, and I thought that if I exposed myself 
to temptations for a week and had no trouble to 
resist them, surely, with the superabundance of 
grace at ordination, I would forever be proof 
against love for woman. 

43 



No doubt, there was a little curiosity to see for 
ourselves, "just for the fun of it," some of the 
darker and more questionable sides of human ex- 
istence, but our prime and chief motive was to 
test ourselves. 

We both went to confession that night, and to 
Communion Monday morning, so as to start off 
fortified with all available grace. 

Needless to say, we spent no time studying the 
architecture of churches. One night we tried the 
"Olympia," to see what effect a French Burlesque 
would have on us, and to learn the intricacies of 
self-control while talking with pretty French 
ladies of fashion, who have a faculty of getting 
acquainted without long or complicated formali- 
ties. Next night we dashed up to the Moulin 
Rouge to try a liqueur and cafe noir, while gaz- 
ing at the "human form divine" of many smiling, 
flitting creatures, who thought that their thoughts 
were our thoughts, and so invited themselves to 
have a drink with us. 

We saw humbug performances at places known, 
in those days, as L'Enfer and Le Ciel. They 

44 



were harmless holes, as far as we were concerned, 
though some of the Elysian maidens were "wrapt 
only in thought," and a few other accessories com- 
mon to the wardrobes of those seeking leadership 
in society, where the fashion is scant attire. 

I shall not enumerate the passing frivolities of 
strolls along the principal avenues, or of enjoyable 
visits to the Jardin de Paris, or of nightly rides, 
up the Boulevard St. Germain, to the Latin 
Quarter, where we indulged in new flirtations. 

One night after the Grand Opera we took a 
midnight supper at Maxim's, where I heard for 
the first time, "There'll be a Hot Time in the Old 
Town To-night," by a Venetian Orchestra. 
There, the usual demi-monde gaiety prevailed. 

No need of further detail, except to say we 
only smoked and drank enough so that two 
smooth-faced, innocent-looking youths might not 
appear too awkward or too saintly in unseemly 
places, at unseemly hours. Our experience did 
us both good, I think. My mind became reas- 
sured, for we had run the gauntlet in safety. No 
woman's charms could ever interfere with my per- 

45 



feet self-control, I was persuaded, not, of course, 
that I expected evil thoughts would never haunt 
me in the future, or that my passion would for- 
ever subside. I flattered myself that in spite of 
weak flesh, a willing spirit is well-nigh invincible, 
and I had the willing spirit, I believed. 

Fontainebleau, Vichy, Moulins, Paray-le- 
Monial, Ars, Lyons, Grenoble, La Grande Char- 
treuse and Avignon were all visited on my south- 
ward journey to Aix-en-Provence, where only 
nine months stood between me and the priest- 
hood. 

I was shocked at Paray-le-Monial to learn the 
absurd pretenses of the Church regarding the de- 
votion to the Sacred Heart. 

I stood in the garden and in the convent where 
Christ is claimed to have manifested Himself, 
and spoken to the nun, Marguerite Marie Ala- 
coque, seventy times from 1672 up to October 
17th, 1690. She claimed He said He wanted to 
reign under the symbol of His Sacred Heart. 
The conditions named were very explicit. The 
first is, said our Lord, "The consecration that he 

46 



(Louis XIV) will make of himself to my ador- 
able Heart, which wishes to triumph over his. 
He (Christ) wishes to reign in his (Louis's) 
palace, to be painted on his standards, and en- 
graved on his arms, to make them victorious over 
all his enemies." Finally, the monarch ought, 
^'To have built an edifice, where there would be a 
picture of this divine Heart, to receive there the 
consecration and the homage of the King and of 
the Court." 

Would it not make you heartsick to have the 
Jesuit Father Joseph Zelle tell you that because 
these "supreme requirements" were ignored the 
French Revolution broke out, and that since then 
France has been unstable ? 

Is it any wonder Frenchmen have no religion? 
They are told God appeared at Paray-le-Monial 
with orders to Louis XIV to have Sacred Hearts 
painted on the National Flag, and Sacred Hearts 
on rifles, revolvers, cannons and sabres; then he 
would be victorious over other kings in war. 
Forsooth ! 

After the Franco-Prussian War the clergy said, 
47 



in effect, "Just as we told you, we did not have 
the Sacred Heart on our flags, or on our arms, 
nor did we build the temple for the Sacred Heart. 
That is why we lost Alsace-Lorraine.'' During 
the three or four years following the War, while 
the effects of the defeat lasted, many pious men 
and women went on pilgrimages to Paray-le- 
Monial, and the present fine Church that sur- 
mounts Montmartre, Paris, was begun as a Na- 
tional Shrine of the Sacred Heart. When I was 
at the anniversary feast of this Church in 1897, 
tracts were being distributed, urging the Govern- 
ment to add to the ''Drapeau Tricolore," the pres- 
ent National Flag, a Sacred Heart, according to 
Christ's orders. Otherwise, no grace or prosper- 
ity can ever be expected for France. Is not that 
a naive lot of legend to nourish the souls of in- 
telligent Frenchmen? 

The devotion to the Sacred Heart, which may 
be commendable and void of superstition when 
rightly interpreted, has unfortunately interwoven 
with the history of its first appearance statements 
that in the light of our day seem ridiculous, and 

48 



tend only to belittle God, who is pictured as strug- 
gling to win Frenchmen to His Heart by prom- 
ises of National Victory in war. 

I see no objection to special visions and revela- 
tions from God. On the contrary, there are not 
enough genuine, extraordinary manifestations of 
the Monarch on High nowadays, or rather it 
seems so to the multitudes who are groping in 
darkness, craving to know exactly the Way and 
the Truth. However, that is God's business and 
I think He knows best. 

I spent three days in the famous monastery of 
the Grande Chartreuse, and while there went to 
confession to one of the monks. In fact, I made 
a general confession of my whole life, including 
everything about my special week seeing Paris. 
Though that experience had seemed justifiable, 
I felt afterwards it was sinful to have exposed 
myself to such dangers, because even with a very 
virtuous companion, a man's thoughts may be- 
come uncontrollable, face to face with life's great- 
est seductions. One may profit by a few days 
among the semi-anchoretic and cenobitic succes- 

49 



sors of Saint Bruno. I certainly did, and as the 
heavy coach rolled down the mountain side to St. 
Laurent-du-Pont my heart was light, and life 
seemed sweet and suave. 

Once again I was back in my tile-paved cham- 
ber at the Seminary, ready for hard, patient work. 
I refused to consider or weigh any arguments 
against my religion. It would be a waste of time 
that I needed for the urgent studies then crowd- 
ing upon me. I resolved to be stubbornly blind 
to everything that detracted in the least from the 
truth, power and glory of Roman Catholic teach- 
ings and practices. The Church demands such 
unstinted submission from advanced seminarians 
and priests, just as She does from the ignorant 
laborer. 

Ingenuous is undoubtedly the one adjective that 
most perfectly describes what a seminarian of the 
Catholic Church must be. Let a student possess 
forty fine qualities, and lack being ingenuous, 
there is no place for him within the walls where 
men begin to study God in Scripture and tradi- 
tion. Unless he continues to be, at least to some 

50 



degree, ingenuous for four years, he is not likely 
ever to become a priest. Webster defines thus, 
"One who is ingenuous is actuated by a native 
simplicity and artlessness." I use the word in 
this good sense, devoid of irony, though I am 
fully aware that the ingenuous usually are so un- 
sophisticated as to be easily gullible. 

I was ingenuous when I entered the seminary 
at Montreal, and I continued so at Paris, and at 
Aix-en-Provence in diminishing degrees. While 
I am still ingenuous to this day, I find it impos- 
sible honestly to accept all the Church believes 
and teaches, as her doctrines have been inter- 
preted to me in the seminary. 

Shortly after having been made deacon, I ob- 
tained a fortnight's leave of absence to visit 
Rome. It was quite extraordinary in French 
seminaries, a few years ago, to give vacations, 
other than the summer one, except in cases of 
illness. Partly because my last year of theology 
was nearly over, and partly because I was some- 
what "run down,'' I was favored. 

It was Easter time, and I looked forward to 
51 



the opportunity of witnessing grand ceremonies 
rather than of beholding in wonderment classic 
ruins and antique works of art. However, I 
made hurried visits to nearly every noted piazza, 
palazzo, and chiesa. Those "grand ceremonies," 
I had expected to enjoy, were a series of empty, 
undignified manoeuvres by a slovenly, indifferent 
lot of ecclesiastics who appeared utterly devoid 
of real piety. The little devotion manifested by 
the people in general was not of a kind either to 
inspire in visitors firmer belief or even to sustain 
existing faith. 

I recall with pleasure the joyful greeting, 
"Buona Pasqua," that flowed from every lip on 
Easter Sunday, but with sorrow I remember that 
from the walls of every church and from the 
depths of every heart seemed to issue the cold, 
gloomy words, "Ruin, Ruin, Ruin!" Ah! yes, 
faith is dead in Rome; there is no more appro- 
priate place on earth for the headquarters of 
ruined Catholicism than in the midst of the 
dilapidated monuments along the Tiber. 

I prayed at the tomb of St. Peter and climbed 
52 



the Scala Sancta on my knees, but I left Rome, 
as Hawthorne did, "disgusted with the pretense 
of hoHness" and "crushed down in spirit by the 
desolation of her ruin and the hopelessness of her 
future." 

I always observed the seminary rules satisfac- 
torily, and my theological studies were passably 
prepared. No more convincing proof is neces- 
sary than that I passed successfully through the 
degrees of initiation, Tonsure, Minor Orders, 
Subdeaconship, and Deaconship, and finally on 
June 29th, 1899, I received Holy Orders, in the 
Metropolitan Basilica of Aix-en-Provence, from 
His Grace, Archbishop Gouthe Soulard. Three 
days later I celebrated my first Mass in the beau- 
tiful Basilica of Lourdes, being the first American 
priest to say his first Mass, after ordination, 
within this world-famed shrine of international 
pilgrimages. 

After six weeks of travel in France, England 
and Ireland, I started for the United States. My 
priestly career had begun auspiciously, if ever 
one did. Three years of separation from dear 

53 



ones had ended with the fulfillment of my most 
sanguine hopes, and I was on my way home re- 
joicing, healthy and enthusiastic. My sole am- 
bition in life was to make all men feel happy, 
and always wear a God-loving. God-fearing 
smile. 

The feelings of my heart upon becoming a 
priest are reflected in the two verses of Scripture 
which I selected for my ordination souvenir 
cards, ''J^^us Christ, yesterday and to-day; and 
the same forever, — " Heb. XIII — 8; "The spirit 
of the Lord is upon me! Wherefore He hath 
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; 
He hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, — *' 
Isaias LXI — i ; Luke IV — 18. 

The same sentiments animated my whole being 
on beginning my practical life as a priest in a 
country parish of fifteen hundred souls, with a ll 
mission five miles away of three hundred more. 
In less than a year and a half I was assigned to 
a large East Side parish, in New York City. 
After a few months there, my attention was 
called to the prospects of getting into the United 

54 



States Navy, as a Chaplain. My application was 
favorably considered, and President McKinley 
signed my commission, dating from June loth, 
1901. 

During the two years of active, priestly duties 
in parishes, I had time to review my studies and 
to reflect. Hearing confessions had revealed to 
me the prevalence, from youngest to oldest, 
highest to lowest in society, in men, women and 
children alike, of such repeated violations of every 
one of the ten Commandments, that I was simply 
appalled. Worse than this, instead of finding 
priests an aggregation of saints, whose thoughts 
were only on the sanctification of souls, I found 
nearly all intensely wrapped up in material pros- 
perity, shunning all kinds of mortification, many 
of them vain, large numbers absolutely refusing 
even to speak to certain of their brethren, curates 
grumbling because their pastors were taking all 
the Requiem Masses (they mean at least five or 
ten dollars each for the priest by whom they are 
said), repeated scandals because of violated vows 
of celibacy, ugliness toward parishioners and ex- 

55 



tortionate methods to get Baptismal money and 
Christmas and Easter offerings; all of these 
things made me realize why we had been told so 
often, during the course of our studies, not to be 
like the priests we would meet in the world, but, 
rather, to follow out the lofty teachings of the 
seminary. 

Maybe I had in my mind the ideals of what a 
priest ought to be, and that I had expected to see 
reproduced Christ, the prototype, which of course 
is impossible. At any rate great was my dis- 
appointment. The theories I had learned were 
beautiful, but I failed to see that the Roman 
Catholic Church was producing more Godly cler- 
gymen and laymen than other forms of religion. 

In spite of my criticisms of priests, it must not 
be forgotten that I regard them, on the whole, as 
superior and benevolent men, honestly and zeal- 
ously working in the way which they consider 
most expedient for the welfare of the human 
race. I emphasize the word expedient, because 
it is expediency that holds to their religion the 
majority of priests. While it is somewhat ex- 

56 



1 

id " 



traneous, I cannot refrain from speaking a word 
of praise for the Roman Catholic nun. There is 
not a nobler character in the world than she, not 
a holier, more self-sacrificing, more^ Godly man 
or woman anywhere. No creature is nearer to 
God than she, no one working more devotedly to 
brighten lives on earth, and to prepare souls for 
eternity. All honor to the Church of Rome for 
producing such a character! 



57 



^^DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE/' 



Up to the time of entering the United States 
Navy, my exterior conduct, as far as my Super- 
iors could observe, had been above reproach; in- 
deed, I seemed a holy and zealous man. When 
His Grace, Archbishop Corrigan, assigned me to 
duty, he wrote this note to Father Kean, "I am 
sending you an excellent young priest/' etc. 
Father Kean subsequently recommended me in 
these words, "He is a very good, zealous, talented 
and estimable priest. * * * jj^ }|a,s per- 
formed his duties most faithfully and cheer- 
fully." Father Lehy, formerly President of Holy 
Cross College, wrote at the end of my course this 
letter, "We take great pleasure in recommending 
Joseph F. MacGrail of this year's graduating 
class. His standing in class has always been 

58 



high, and we have always assigned him positions 
of trust and honor." Father John Power, V.G., 
my Hfelong Pastor, wrote on September 23rd, 
1895, in a letter of recommendation, ''I am only 
'too happy to state that I have nothing to say of 
you but what is good, that I have always con- 
sidered you one of the best boys of my Sunday 
School, and one of the best young men in my 
parish/' This opinion was not changed on Feb- 
ruary 22nd, 1 90 1, when he wrote to Senator 
Hoar, the following letter. 

Worcester, Mass., Feb. 22nd, 1901. f 

Hon. George F. Hoar, 

United States Senator. 
My Dear Friend : — 

This is to introduce to you the Rev. Joseph F. MacGrail 
of Worcester, who asks me to secure your valuable services 
in his behalf for a Chaplaincy in the United States Navy 
that is about to be made vacant within a month. I have 
known him from childhood, and feel warranted in speaking 
emphatically of his worth and capabilities. I know the al- 
most incessant calls made on a man in your position, and I j 
have all the more hesitancy in writing to you in this mat- ' 
ter, but he is a Worcester young man, stands well with 
the authorities of his Church, and I personally take great 
interest in his welfare. He has most excellent letters to 
show. 

Can you, in your kindness of heart, exert any influence 
upon the President or others that will help him. If so, I 
shall once more sign myself, 

Your grateful and obliged friend, 

(Signed) Jno. J. Power, V.G. 

59 



Although my own Bishop, Most Rev. Thomas 
D. Beaven of Springfield, Massachusetts, had 
written letters of recommendation to Cardinal 
Gibbons, and to President McKinley, favoring 
my appointment to the United States Navy, 
Senator Hoar also added his kind recommenda- 
tion. His letter follows: 

Committee on the Judiciary 

United States Senate 

Washington, D. C. 

Feb. 26th, 1901. 
Sir:— 

The Rev. Joseph F. MacGrail, of Worcester, Mass., is 
desirous of being appointed Chaplain in the Navy. He is 
a Catholic Clergyman, He seems to be a very intelligent 
man, in the vigor of youthful health. He is highly recom- 
mended by my friend, Father John J. Power, Vicar Gen- 
eral of Massachusetts, and by the Right Rev. Monsignor 
Conaty, the Head of the Catholic University here. I am 
told that there is still a very much smaller proportion of 
Catholic Clergymen in the Navy than there is of Catholics 
among the Sailors. If that be true, I presume you will 
like so far as may be done without injury to the service, 
to give this denomination of Christians its fair share of the 
Clergymen. 

I have the honor to be, with high regard, faithfully 
yours, 

(Signed) George F. Hoar. 
The President. 



60 



My innate pride prompts me to rejoice in these 
words of praise, yet in reality they are a re- 
proach to me, because by contrast with my sub- 
sequent, dissipated life they bring up that oft 
repeated, sad story, "It might have been." In 
my mind, too, the downfall of those favored by 
every advantage in youth is doubly disgraceful. 

It may not be modest to affirm that during the 
first twenty-seven years of my life I fought hard 
to merit such encomiums as I have quoted. Inter- 
iorly and exteriorly I was a pure, honest. God- 
fearing man. Besides, I never had smoked or 
taken intoxicating liquors, excepting at rare in- 
tervals during my sojourn in France. When I 
returned from abroad, a priest, I refused to play 
cards, even in my own home, believing such 
diversion a loss of valuable time, as well as being 
a sure road to gambling. 

By degrees only do our convictions change in 
religious matters. No single scandal, no one 
newly learned fact of history, no isolated, sur- 
prising condition peculiar to a particular people, 
can influence either weak or strong minds to deny 

6t 



the old religion of childhood, or to accept sud- 
denly a new form of worship, but a series of 
novel and irreconcilable actualities hurled, month 
after month, against a serious thinker leave in- 
dentations, which finally become so numerous as 
to produce a complete metamorphosis of the 
mind. Each blow is felt, but the mark left is for- 
gotten, or escapes notice, in the hasty course of 
events. Sooner or later, however, a man per- 
ceives that the structure built by faith is tottering 
or already in ruins. Then he begins to sin. Some 
become sinful and then strive to destroy the 
foundations of the morality on which is based 
the sinfulness of their actions ; others, seeing 
those foundations crumble through disbelief, fall 
into sin without remorse, and almost with ma- 
licious deliberation. To the latter class I belong. 
Right here I must make the most painful and 
most shameful confession of my life, — I accepted 
a commission in the United States Navy, as a 
Roman Catholic priest, knowing I had no faith, 
and realizing that my soul was tainted with sins 

of impurity. 

62 



Fully ten months before I received my appoint- 
ment to the Navy I had asked my Bishop for an 
"Exeat," that is, permission to go to another 
diocese. I wished to get away from my family 
and old friends, intending after a time to enter a 
religious order abroad, and then, when I had 
been forgotten, to walk out into the world and 
quietly begin life an honest man. Why such an 
unholy, insincere, underhanded proceeding you 
ask ? Simply because a priest can never resign 
from the priesthood. Simply because conscience 
is subordinate to the mandates of the Church. 
Roman Catholics are so imbued with these ideas, 
that a priest who honestly gives up his religion 
is a monster in their eyes, more guilty than 
Judas, and little less deserving of divine mercy 
than Satan himself. He becomes a vile and de- 
tested reprobate, loathed by former Catholic 
friends and relatives, and at his shattered soul is 
hurled the Church's anathema, 'Tereat,'' — "Be- 
fore all men let him be forever an outcast, and 
before God let him be eternally damned." 

"Qui fidem sub Ecclesiae magisterio suscep- 
63 



enint, nullam iinquam habere possimt justam 
causam mutandi, aut in dubium fidem eamdam 
revocandi. — De fide est,*' — Page 437. Volume i, 
Bonal — (He, who, under the tutorship of the 
Church, has received his faith, can never, at any 
time, have just cause of changing or calling into 
doubt that same faith. — This is of faith). Like- 
wise in the Pontifical letter called ''Syllabus*' by 
Pius IX. December 8th, 1864, is condemned 
the proposition, 'Tiberum cuique homini est earn 
amplecti ac profiteri Religionem. quam rationis 
lumine quis ductus veram putaverit." — (Man is 
free to embrace and to profess the religion which, 
led by the Hght of reason, he shall think to be the 
true one.) Conscience is therefore nothing. I 
ask frankly who gave me conscience? Is not 
conscience just as divine as any Scripture? I 
declare that it is, and so long as I can remain, 
or try to remain, true to my conscience, I have 
no fear of God or man. May that Supreme ^^ 
Being, who endowed me with a spark of mystery 
called soul, and created me to sen-e His will, 
henceforth guide me by the divine light which I 

64 



4«^' 



know he never gave to confuse and to damn me, 
but rather to draw me nearer to His own divine 
person ! 

I was a weak-willed man not to have re- 
nounced my faith when I no longer believed, and 
my punishment came in the form of a dishonor- 
able discharge from the United States Navy, 
leastwise, it pleases me to view the matter thus. 
Let the earthly judges of my character be some- 
what lenient, remembering I was trained to be- 
lieve that it was an unpardonable, hell-deserving 
sin to renounce my faith under any conditions, 
and that to take the wife I craved was con- 
demned, by the authorities whom I regarded to 
be divine ambassadors, as accepting a sacrilegious 
concubine who could beget me only bastards. 
What rendered me helpless in the last degree 
was to realize that those who were dearer to me 
than life itself would be dishonored, and heart- 
broken, ignoring me as the source of their ago- 
nies, if I manfully renounced my false allegiance 
to Rome. Enough! Enough! 

I must not forget, at this moment, to exonerate 

65 



completely the United States Navy as having 
participated, even in a minor degree, in my down- 
fall. Many relatives and friends think the Navy 
is immoral, and that I was misled. This is false. 
To my shamiC be it said that I entered the Navy 
an unworthy man, and, if harm was done, I was 
the culpable party, for before I had been a Chap- 
lain one year, I was guilty of most questionable 
conduct, and most dangerous example. 

While I had tried to avoid doing anything to 
injure or scandalize others, I had concluded to 
live a free and easy life, even before I became a 
Chaplain. I was condemned to Hell if I left the 
Church, I was told, and as I knew of no worse 
place to go if I remained in the Church sinfully, 
I decided on that penny-wise pound-foolish ad- 
vice, get the game with the name. I am bitter 
against Roman Catholicism, because by its teach- 
ings utter ruin is deliberately planned for those 
who refuse to submit to immoral dictates. At 
one time Rome openly put to death those who 
could not conscientiously believe her dogmas, 
and to-day, even, she consigns to Hell by her 

66 



anathemas those who ask to serve God accord- 
ing to their honest convictions. It is not manly 
for me to make excuses for my conduct of the 
past five years, nor can I blame either the Church 
or religion for many unfortunate escapades. 
Rum has played its dreadful role, yet I maintain 
it was not drink that ruined me. It merely re- 
vealed the ruin. In reality, I owe a debt of 
gratitude to the flowing bowl, for it has at last 
dragged me to where I must, to where I can, be 
a man. A sad, but striking, paradox. 

A frequent admonition to seminarians, for 
their future guidance in the priesthood, is "never 
to be 'solus cum sola' " (alone with a woman). 
During my whole life, up to my arrival in St. 
James' parish, New York City, I had been strictly 
faithful to this rule. Needless to say that I, like 
most young priests, always had a keen curiosity 
which had never been gratified, though nature at 
times burned with fury. 

One cold evening in March, I left the parish 
house with a civilian's collar and necktie hidden 
in my coat pocket. I boarded a Third Avenue 

67 



Elevated train at Chatham Square, and went up- 
town to where, I had learned, the demi-mondaines 
were numerous, and there I sought a dark corner 
of a certain street to make a lightning change, 
which would transform me from a clergyman to 
a "sport/' At least, I planned to be a sport for 
a few hours. A crankism of Lisle de Vaux runs, 
"When we get what we want, we are always 
disappointed to find it is not what we wanted/' 
This quotation is appropriate for my case. 
As I turned homeward, late that night, 
there was only melancholy in my soul. Man's 
thought soon returns, however, to the antici- 
pated raptures of passion, forgetful of the reac- 
tionary sadness. So it was with me, anyway, 
and during the next four months, more than once, 
I sought forbidden pleasures. 



68 



LIFE IN THE NAVY; COURT- 
MARTIALED. 



My first assignment to duty in the United 
States Navy was aboard the Training Ship 
"Dixie." We started shortly for a sojourn in 
Europe. The voyage across was somewhat 
rough ; therefore, my inactivity was attributed to 
nausea. I was perfectly contented to appear sea- 
sick. My fellow-officers could scarcely have 
guessed the truth, that the new chaplain, just 
before joining his ship, had unwisely spent a 
night in "unrestrained joy;'' and there are pen- 
alties. 

While there was no justification for my accept- 
ing a position of honor and trust in the United 
States Navy as Chaplain, when I realized I was 
a fakir and a hypocrite, still I retained the faint 
hope that with the minimum of priestly duties (I 

69 



always felt excessive prayers and devotions had 
materially helped to kill my faith) I might be- 
come an upright and useful '^Sky Pilot." It was 
all a delusion. I gradually began to indulge in 
every pleasure I fancied, and it was not long 
before I was known as a pretty gay Chaplain. 
To be sure, I said ]\Iass every Sunday morning 
for those of the landsmen, the marines, the Ship's 
company and the Officers who cared to attend. 
I preached a weekly sermon, and gave occasional 
lectures. I told the men always to feel free to 
come to me in their troubles for advice and con- 
solation. I really felt interested in the men and 
found them an excellent lot, but my utter lack of 
faith in my religion tended to make me neglect 
them, and to cause me to be dejected. I realized 
what a hypocrite I was, and what a coward not 
to come right out like a man and resign, both 
from the Navy and the Priesthood. 

In wine, women and gambling I found m.eans 
of distraction. It was not hard to play a double 
role, even though I knew many of the officers, 

and most of the crew, must have grave sus- 

70 



picions. Of course, I was not brazen about my 
misdemeanors, and if anyone expressed surprise 
at my lax living, I feigned a wounded feeling 
and said, ^'Honi soit qui mal y pense." The 
*^Dixie" was called a converted cruiser, but that 
was not because she had me for a chaplain. My 
example tended to make an inverted cruiser out 
of her. 

By the time we reached Villefranche all hands 
were prepared for about anything, so my almost 
nightly visits to the Casino at Monte Carlo were 
merely a subject for jokes, not amazement. I 
played regularly and left at the end of two weeks 
about one hundred dollars winner. (I was told 
a year later, by Chaplain Jones, U.S.N., who 
was attached to the "Monongahela," and at 
Villefranche while the "Dixie" was there, that 
he had paid fifty dollars, out of his own pocket, 
to an English correspondent, who had written 
me up for gambling, not to publish the story. It 
was surely a very friendly act, but as I thought 
it might be a fish-story, I never offered to reim- 
burse the Chaplain.) 

71 



One day I would dine with a demi-mondaine, 
and the next day with an Archbishop. What I 
did not see in Europe of high Hfe and low life 
was not worth seeing. In spite of it all, I pre- 
pared seven men and an officer for Confirmation, 
and Archbishop Timoni of Smyrna conferred the 
Sacrament on board ship, the first and only time 
that such an occurrence has taken place on a ship 
of the United States Navy. To signify his pleas- 
ure the Archbishop made me a Canon of his 
Cathedral. 

I heard nearly fifty confessions on Christmas 
eve, my first year at sea, then went to the ward- 
room, where the officers were having a Christmas- 
tree, and joined in clinking glasses. I had a fright- 
ful headache the next morning, about the only 
time I have ever had one from drinking, but I 
said Mass and gave Communion. On all such oc- 
casions as saying Mass and administering Sacra- 
ments, I never failed to preface my actions with 
the intention of "doing what the Church in- 
tended,'' which procedure, it is claimed, makes 
the acts of priests without faith valid, though they 

7a 



might otherwise be invalid. As regards hearing 
confessions, I pride myself on never having 
been careless or hasty, even to the very day I 
voluntarily left the Church. I always pronounced 
with fervor and exactness the prayer of absolu- 
tion, and if anything ever held me to the Roman 
Catholic Church it was the Confessional, and if 
anything can ever get me back into the fold, it 
will be the high regard I have for the sanctity 
and helpfulness to sinners of the Confessional. 

My first annual report to the Navy Department 

follows : — 

U. S. S. "Panther," 
Island of Culebra, near Puerto Rico. 
Sir:— 

In accordance with article 764 of the regulations, I here- 
in make the following annual report. 

The first six months of the year 1902 were spent on 
board the U. S. S. "Dixie," Captain R. M. Berry com- 
manding, and the last six months on the U. S. S. ''Pan- 
ther," Commander J. C. Wilson, commanding. 

On every Sunday, excepting a few when stormy weather 
prevented or extra duty kept all hands at work, I have held 
the regular service of the Roman Catholic Church at half- 
past ten in the morning. This service consisted of Mass, 
Reading of the Epistle and Gospel of the Sunday, a ser- 
mon, and a few prayers at the close. Part of the time I 
have had music by the Ship's band, and part of the time 
singing by members of the Ship's company. 

On the ''Dixie" I taught advanced French to six of the 

73 



officers, and elementary French to two officers and to three 
petty officers. 

On the "Dixie" also I arranged for a Minstrel Show, 
with the help of Ensign Henderson, and as well for two 
variety entertainments, in all of which the Ship's company 
participated. 

The management of a Ball Nine devolved upon me 
while on the "Dixie," and several times I accompanied the 
men ashore to play. 

Both on the "Dixie" and on the "Panther" I have pre- 
pared and delivered a few lectures on places of interest 
we have visited. 

In June last I officiated at the burial service of an Ap- 
prentice boy by the name of Miller, who was drowned 
at the League Island Navy Yard, and again in December 
I performed the last rites over a Ship's Cook, named Mc- 
Cabe, drowned at San Juan, Porto Rico. 

I am much pleased with the facilities my commanding 
officers have afforded me at all times in fulfilling my du- 
ties, and with the congenial co-operation of all my fellow- 
officers in anything I undertook or suggested to make 
Ship's life pleasant for the crew. 

At various times I have been aboard the ''Essex," the 
"Monongahela," the "Chicago" and the "Prairie" to hold 
religious services. Frequently, with the consent of the 
Captain, I have had ministers of different denominations 
on board to officiate. 

I would recommend that the Department make some pro- 
vision to supply books and other necessary material to 
the Chaplains who desire to organize classes in history, 
(all modern history, but United States* in particular), in 
English, in rudimentary physics or in any other branch. 
I would not like to see all Chaplains forced to teach, there- 
by making schoolmasters of them, but in many cases, with 
proper facilities, Chaplains would gladly instruct in other 
matters as well as in religion. Respectfully, 

(Signed) Joseph F. MacGrail, 



Secretary of the Navy. 

74 



Chaplain U. S. Navy. 



The impressions and experiences of long cruis- 
ing in the West Indies, including the Martinique 
Relief Expedition, and a hurried trip, aboard the 
U. S. S. "Panther," to Central America, where 
our interests were jeopardized by the Honduras 
Revolution of 1903, must be left for the more 
complete record of my inner life, that will appear 
in a less abridged form of book, bearing the same 
title as this story. Estimates of the American 
Naval Line officers and of the blue jackets, of 
the Chaplains' corps, and of the other Staff corps 
must likewise be deferred. While praise will 
predominate in my contemplated criticisms there 
will be friendly reproaches that, even though 
justifiable, may wound a little. Excepting in rare 
instances, my personal relations with both officers 
and men have been such as to leave the very 
pleasantest recollections. I have only love and 
admiration for the American Navy. Such noble 
types of men as Rear Admiral R. M. Berry, Cap- 
tain C. P. Rees, Commanders J. P. Parker and 
York Noel cannot be excelled anywhere, and our 
Navy is full of their like. 

75 



I requested orders to the Asiatic Station when 
the "Panther" went out of commission in the Fall 
of 1903. I had determined to begin all over, 
and try again to be an upright, virtuous man, 
but making, however, the same restriction as the 
little boy who did not raise his hand when the 
teacher asked ''How many children want to go to 
Heaven?'' He answered her question, "Don't 
you want to go to Heaven, Tommy?'' by the re- 
ply "Not yet." I resolved to be good, but "not 
yet," not till I reached Manila. I planned on a 
gay time crossing the Continent to San Fran- 
cisco; my plans were carried out, though one 
day's incarceration, while intoxicated, for threat- 
ening to kill every Mormon in Salt Lake City 
had not been included in the original order of 
exercises. I had taken a few Rye High-balls 
before and after visiting the Tabernacle. The 
last thing I remember was treating some stran- 
gers at a near-by saloon. I may have been 
drugged, though I missed only a little money, 
which I might have spent, after losing full pos- 
session of my faculties. I have no recollection 

76 



of being arrested, but I awoke at night in a vile 
old cellar, where about twenty-five prisoners were 
confined. It was a most trying ordeal to wait 
until two o'clock the following day for Court. A 
kind, young Judge listened to my story of prob- 
ably having been drugged, and learning I had a 
ticket for San Francisco, discharged me with the 
remark, ^'You don't look like a man who ought 
to be here." With thanks I departed, after re- 
ceiving back the contents of my searched pockets, 
and my battered tall hat. 

This terrible occurrence prompted me to go to 
confession, in San Francisco, to a Paulist Father. 
In tears, I laid my whole life before him. He 
was perceptibly touched, and urged me to resign 
from the Navy. I conceded I felt my duty was 
to leave both Navy and Church, for I realized 
full well it would be only a question of time till 
fatal disaster would overtake me. But the old 
dread came over me of disgracing my family by 
giving up the Church, so I resolved to drift along 
and try to avoid detection in my sins. I felt the 
Government could better afford to pay me than 

77 



could the hard working parishioners of any place 
to which my Bishop might send me ; and in the 
Navy I could, moreover, have an enjoyable time, 
week in and week out, because the Chaplaincy is 
most certainly a sinecure. 

My tale might well end here. I did not change 
my mode of living when I reached the Orient. 
Manila saw much of my merry dissipation, and 
Hong Kong came in for a share, during the 
month I spent there on the Battleship "Oregon." 

In July, 1904, began a long drawn out court- 
martial. I was not guilty of all I was charged 
with, nor was it possible to prove conclusively 
that I was guilty of anything. Navy court- 
martials, however, are not convened to prove a 
man guilty, but to let a man prove he is innocent. 
I rightly deserved the sentence of the Court, 
nevertheless. The Buddhist Rear Admiral Fol- 
ger (under oath he testified to being of this re- 
ligious denomination) resorted to malicious 
means of prosecution and showed himself very 
prejudiced, but I really think myself, that I, in 
his place, would have had little more consider- 

78 



apA^^n 



ation, than he had, for such a religious hypocrite 
as I was. The officers of my Court were all very 
fair; excepting the Judge Advocate at times was 
bitter, and resorted to what seemed questionable 
tactics. He was under a great strain and may 
be pardoned. The charges and specifications 
against me, if printed, I fear would have to be 
sent by express, unless the postal authorities sus- 
pended the usual regulations. Briefly, all may be 
summed up in the words, "Too much devotion to 
wine and women." I endeavored to resign from 
the Navy before the trial, but to no purpose. 



79 



ROME RENOUNCED; PAYING 
THE PENALTY. 



Now comes the singular part of my whole 
career. Even after the approval of the Court's 
sentence, that I be dismissed from the Navy 
without honor, my standing in the Roman Cath- 
olic Church was never affected, though my Bishop 
had learned fully of my offenses. Although I 
was not assigned to a permanent parish at once, 
I went on administering the Sacraments, and 
saying Mass, like any other priest. At Easter- 
time I was officially ordered by my Bishop to 
Oxford, Massachusetts, to assist Father Hafey, 
the Pastor, as the following letter shows : 

St. Michael's Cathedral, 
Springfield, Mass., April 13, 1905. 
Rev. and Dear Sir : 

You will go to Oxford next Saturday morning and aS'j 
sist Fr. Hafey till Easter Monday. 

Sincerely Yrs. in Xt 

Thos. D. Beaven, 

Bishop of Springfield. 

80 



I spent two busy weeks there, drew my salary 
and went home feeling triumphant. I had merely 
been waiting patiently for such an assignment to 
duty, so to have proof that the Church accepted 
me as of good standing, thereby enabling me to 
go manfully and voluntarily to the Bishop and 
say, *'I have no faith — I am going to leave the 
Church." This I did in June of the year 1905. 
I felt a little consolation in having been able to 
renounce freely, and not out of necessity, my ill- 
starred priesthood. It is a shameful outrage that 
a man is not allowed to resign honorably before 
he is submerged in sin, and, in my mind, the 
Church deserves all the disgrace that arises from 
such unholy laws. 

During the past year, in New York City, I 
managed to retain an honorable position as a 
librarian, but frequent recourse to drink has more 
than once landed me in the Courtroom for drunk- 
enness. 

'There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms 
As rum and true religion." 
I — ''Don Juan'* by Byron. 

81 



I might allege that my unhappy plight had 
driven me to drink; it would be truer to say I 
have sought exhilaration in wine from weakness. 
Henceforth, having spoken my mind, though 
the way be rough and hard to climb, I know I 
can and shall be a man. I propose to regain all 
the honor I have lost and far more. "From the 
lowliest depth there is a path to the loftiest 
height.'' — Carlyle. 

What, then, is my mental attitude, to-day, 
towards Church and religion? I do not firmly 
believe, without doubt, that the personage known 
to history as Jesus Christ was the Creator of the 
Universe and is now its Ruler, while, neverthe- 
less, accepting Him as an extraordinary mortal 
of marvelous power and virtue. Neither do I 
firmly believe, without doubt, that the Roman 
Catholic Church is the infallible source of moral 
truth, while, however, recognizing in her an in- 
fluence which has greatly benefited part of the 
human race. My vow of chastity and promise 
of obedience in promulgating Rome's teachings 

both hinged on my belief in the divinity of 

82 



Christ, and the divine appointment of the Roman 
CathoHc Church to be forever the one and only 
supremely authorized teacher on earth of eternal 
truth. During three years I lived from minute 
to minute a black, deliberate lie, by pretending to 
believe in certain doctrines and practices, and by 
teaching them to others. I was a coward and a 
mercenary menial of the lowest type to have done 
so, and I accept every affliction, that has been 
visited upon me, as the merited punishment of 
my lying, religious hypocrisy. 

I may be wrong now, absolutely speaking, in 
my convictions; my judgment may be utterly 
deceiving me; yet the irresistible and uncom- 
promising fact of disbelief holds fast every part 
of my mind and soul. Let my conscience be diag- 
nosed by the subtle casuist as false, or what he 
will, a diagnosis does not change the actual fact 
that I disbelieve. To follow my God-given con- 
science is now the highest rule of action that I 
know. That conscience, with the truths of study 
and experience at hand, tells me the Church can- 
not be divine and infallible which (i) teaches 

83 



and encourages priests to live the life of religious 
hypocrites, when they cease to have faith in their 
religion, and refuses absolutely to let them resign 
honorably from their profession; which (2) com- 
pels priests to pose as chaste men when they find 
it impossible to live a life of celibacy; which (3) 
defines, as infallible truths, the doctrines "Unam 
esse fidelium universalem Ecclesiam, extra quam 
nullus omnino salvatur, — " Cone. Later. IV, — De 
fide est — (There is only one universal Church of 
the faithful, out of which no one can at all be 
saved, — IV Lateran Council, — It is of faith), 
and, 'Tarvulus, decedens cum originali peccato, 
punitur poena damni aeterna," — De fide est — (A 
little child, dying in original sin, is punished with 
the eternal pain of the damned, — It is of faith) : 
[Rome teaches all are born in original sin, which 
only Baptism can blot out, and therefore inno- 
cent, unbaptized babes must go to Hell] ; and 
which (4) encourages and participates in such 
atrocities as the massacre of St. Bartholomew's 
Day. 

Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church by no 
84 



means has a just or sole claim to the marks by 
which she contends the true Church may be 
recognized. Christianity has unity neither of or- 
ganization, faith, teaching, discipline, prayer nor 
sacramental grace; holiness is no more conspic- 
uous in the Church of Rome than in the Church 
of England ; Rome's only pretext for calling her- 
self Catholic is because she claims universal juris- 
diction (claiming and having are quite different) ; 
as to being apostolic the Roman Church may 
have some title, but the Greek Church has more 
convincing historical proof that it is also apos- 
tolic. 

It is paradoxical and sadly disturbing to my 
mind to find so many instances in which one 
''Alter Christus" (Another Christ) is not only 
lacking love for, but bitterly hateful towards, 
another "Alter Christus", as a priest is theo- 
logically known. The decadence of the Church 
in Europe, its lack of genuine supremacy any- 
where, even in a single Country of the world 
(Supremacy in name counts for nothing), the 
inexplicable tangle and incomprehensible mixture 

85 



of scientific errors, hyperboles, fiction and truth 
in Scripture, and lastly, the confounding teaching 
that a lie may be lawful for a just cause, one of 
which is ''The Glory of God," are added reasons 
for my turning from the Roman Catholic Church. 
How am I to know what is the real meaning of 
Rome's doctrines if she maintains she has a right 
to deceive me for "The Glory of God ?'' 

Can I, moreover, for a moment, accept as di- 
vine a Church which consigns to a Hell of ever- 
lasting torments Gladstone and Senator Hoar, and 
has the same fate prepared for President Roose- 
velt, unless he becomes a Roman Catholic before 
his death ? No, never ! I see indignation, now, in 
the eye of even the novice theologian, who 
wants to say my assertion is false, because the 
Church qualifies by the distinction, non-catholics 
are saved if they are "in good faith." Bosh! 
What has that to do with the cases I purposely 
selected? If we accept the dogma "out of the 
Church of Rome there is no salvation," it may 
be reasonable to apply the subtle "being-in-good- 
faith" condition to many people of little learning 

86 



Hi 



or narrow environment, but it is plainly either 
impeaching God's veracity, or making a cruel and 
impossible God out of the Lord, to apply the 
"being-in-good-faith" rule to the eminent men in 
question. Brownson, a devout convert to 
Catholicism and an able theologian, has put the 
matter so logically and forcibly that I must quote 
him. "It is said that those without (the Church) 
are simply bound to seek, and that we can deny 
them the possibility of salvation only on the con- 
dition that they do not seek. Be it so. But if 
they are bound to seek, it is because Almighty 
God commands them to seek, and gives them the 
grace which enables them to seek ; and who is pre- 
pared to say, if they seek cauta soUicitudine, as St. 
Augustine makes it necessary for them to do, 
that they will not find ? If God commands them 
to seek they can iind; for He never commands 
one to seek in vain. ^Seek and ye shall find; 
^ knock and it shall be opened unto you — for every- 
one that seeketh findeth, and to everyone that 
knocketh it shall be opened.' It is fair then to 
conclude, if there is one who does not find, to 

87 



whom it is not opened, that he is one that does 
not seek, he is out of the Church by his own 
fault. The grace of prayer is given unto every- 
one, and everyone can pray, and if he does he 
shall receive ; and it would impeach both the wis- 
dom and the veracity of God to maintain the 
contrary." Hence, either Gladstone and Senator 
Hoar are in Hell, and Roosevelt is going there, 
if he does not become a Catholic, or God is a 
liar, or the Roman Catholic Church is not the 
one and only true Church. The first two propo- 
sitions being absolutely and absurdly false, it fol- 
lows that the Church of Rome is in error, and 
is not the one and only true Church. 

As the profound and scholarly Rev. William 
Thurston Brown says, in a wonderful sermon, 
"The Real Religion of To-day," "No God is a 
great deal better than an immoral and impossible 
Deity." Do I then reject God? Am I an atheist? 
Far from it. Indeed, my God is the same God 
as that of St. Francis de Sales. One day he was 
asked, "Who is God?" "He is a spirit infinitely 

88 

L OF a 



superior to every intelligence, who is everywhere 
without being perceived anywhere, as the soul is 
within the body without being seen, and in tell- 
ing you this," he added in a grave and deeply 
concerned tone, ''I do not pretend to tell you who 
God is, but rather to make you understand / am 
not able to tell/' I believe in a something and a 
somebody in an unknowable beyond. My con- 
stant, earnest prayer is, "Let there be Light!" 
Why I believe, I don't know; I simply believe. 
Then you have faith, someone may say. Yes, I 
have a certain kind of faith, but not the kind 
described by a little child, and the kind Rome sup- 
plies, namely, "Faith is that quality which en- 
ables us to believe what we know to be untrue." 
The only way I can explain how priests and 
ministers preach so dogmatically anything and 
almost everything, is that they simply assume or 
imagine certain groundwork as God's spoken 
word. After that all is easy. As someone has 
put it, the rest is settled, "Go forth believing 
without questioning ; act as though it were so and 

it is so. This is faith pure and simple." 

89 



I am quite prepared for the accustomed accu- 
sation that my renunciation of the priesthood will 
arouse, the same accusation that has always been 
made against others, "The source of all this un- 
belief is, of course, in the proud mind and sensual 
heart of man." I admit I am proud and sensual, 
but that does not prove the Roman Catholic 
Church is justified in holding me in immoral and 
dishonest bondage, by refusing me the right to 
resign honorably from the priesthood, nor does it 
prove the truth or justice of other defective teach- 
ings and discipline of the Church. 

I recall the story told of a poor woman who 
was summoned to the deathbed of her husband. 
He realized his end was approaching and began 
to enumerate to his wife the state of his financial 
affairs. Every time he mentioned the name of 
one of his debtors, the weeping wife would wring 
her hands and moan, "Sensible to the last," but 
when he named a creditor, she would shriek, "O 
my, how he raves!" While I professed Roman 
Catholicism I was, in the minds of the faithful, 

90 




"Sensible to the last/' but now I may expect the 
piercing cry, "O my, how he raves !" 

I do not pretend to be able to offer an infallible 
substitute for my religion. I do not maintain that 
anybody else should be swayed by the reasons 
that have uprooted my boyhood's faith. I duly 
appreciate all the Church's priests have done to 
make me happy at Sunday School, at College and 
in the Seminary. I am not unmindful that the 
Church aided me to a highly honorable position 
in the United States Navy. I cannot forget that 
many times, while a boy and a young man, the 
moral teachings about sin's wickedness and vir- 
tue's sweet rewards guided, sustained, consoled 
and encouraged me, giving me hopes which made 
life worth living, and alleviating that anguish of 
soul which often drives those, without faith in a 
God, to misery and degradation. To appear an 
ungrateful child now is the saddest and most 
bitter moment of my existence. Were I not "sus- 
tained by an unfaltering trust" that my first and 
supreme duty in life is to be honest, I would 
collapse. 

91 



My heart grows faint, and my woe is unutter- 
able, as I pay the forfeit of my heart's true 
convictions. Henceforth, all is sacrificed. Never 
again shall I receive the smiles of innocent chil- 
dren, bowing sweetly and lovingly, and greeting 
me with a fond. ^^Good Morning, Father;" never 
again shall I stand at the bedside of sick, fer\^ent 
old Irish women, to whom the priest is more than 
God Himself, and hear, after administering Ex- 
treme Unction, a heartfelt, faith-inspiring, ''God 
bless you. Father;" never again can I go with 
the olden welcome to my home, my relatives and 
my friends. Everybody and ever)i:hing, made 
dear and sacred by blood and the ties of youth's 
warm friendships, must be lost forever. Yes. 
there is a Hell, and the Church has made it, on 
earth, for the priest who dares leave her. She 
may well wear an ironic smile, for She knows the 
pain inflicted by her grief-bearing "Pereat." 

Would that my kith and kin, all deeply beloved, 
might have been spared the sorrows of my past 
sins and of this renunciation, so heart-rending to 
a Catholic family. 

92 



I am happy in having courage. It is man's 
duty to face every hardship and fortune of life, 
and to do so honestly. I shall face my troubles, 
my debts and the dark future, and I shall con- 
quer, bearing in mind two texts of Scripture, 
worthy of any creed, "Lying lips are an abomin- 
ation to the Lord," and "A thief is better than a 
man that is always lying; but both of them shall 
inherit destruction." 

Scarcely a sign of regret for sins committed 
can be found in this brief autobiography; it is 
because, "Alas! I have not words to tell my 
grief." Indeed, "Great sorrows cannot speak." 

I fear there are still traces in me of the rank 
superstition which pervaded my life up to five 
years ago. Besides, the emotions and sympathies 
of my Irish heart have urged me to put forth all 
I could for that religion which is at least hon- 
estly, if not wisely, professed by thousands of 
the Celtic race. Nevertheless, whatever praise or 
admiration I have expressed for the Church must 
not be interpreted in favor of that organization 
as a useful social body. On the contrary, I con- 

93 



i 

sider the Roman Catholic Church to be a most * 
pernicious institution which promotes only hatred, 
inequality and dishonesty among men. 

My renunciation of the Roman Catholic faith 
is none the less positive, emphatic and permanent 
because I return thanks to those priests who did 
for me, during many years, what they undoubt- 
edly believed was for my welfare, but what in 
reality was suited only to work ruination. Those 
good men who have proved themselves virtuous 
priests are such in spite of and not because of 
the career they are following. In fact, they 
would be far more helpful members of society if 
their organization were blotted out of existence. 

My regard for the Confessional is not based 
upon its being divine. Its usefulness appeals to 
me because it is a means of enjoying and profit- 
ing by the sacred confidence of one man in a 
fellow-man. Its true base is the integrity of 
human nature, which guards honestly what one 
heart reveals to another, when in quest of advice, 
encouragement and consolation. In saying the 
Confessional would be the most likely feature to 

94 



draw me back to Roman Catholicism, I do not 
infer, or in any wise imply, that this one thing 
can ever possibly hypnotize me and revive my 
childhood's belief. 

No, it would be simply puerile for me to return 
to the Church of Rome, the great, tyrannical 
Trust, the religious oppressor, madly claiming to 
have a monopoly of the whole Kingdom of 
Heaven, and to be the sole, legitimate distributor 
of earthly happiness. 

Would that I might send forth the story of 
my struggles, backed by the unblemished char- 
acter I enjoyed during the first twenty-seven 
years of my life ! Since I cannot, the wisdom of 
Bishop Spalding must be borne in mind by the 
reader, "It is ignorance or prejudice to make a 
man's conduct an argument against the worth of 
his writings'' and "If thy one object is truth 
what matter whether thou find it with thy friends 
or thy foes. If thou hearest it from the lips of 
a convict, it is sacred as though it had been 
spoken by the holiest of men." 



95 



i 



^'The saddest truth is better than the 
merriest lie.'^ — ** Means and Ends of 
Education/' — Bishop Spalding. 






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